


1400(+31)°F

by Anonymous



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Calling Your Teamleader 'Babe' and Other Dysfunctions, Crossing Timelines, Dimension Travel, Lance Dies in Most Realities, M/M, Mutually Unrequited, Parallel Universes, Post Season 7, bad timeline, you track one (1) omnicidal maniac across the multiverse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-04
Updated: 2018-09-11
Packaged: 2019-07-06 23:06:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15895986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: "Now that's nostalgic as fuck," Pidge says when the five Lions of Voltron come into view in their original, almost boxy shape."Yeah, only not in the good way. I wasn't happy about upgrading the Lions, but," Hunk says."You know, come to think of it, what if they think we're from the evil mirrorverse," Lance says, "Keith has a scar and I have an eyepatch and Hunk hasn't shaved in a week, we totally fit the bill for the 'evil mirrorverse clone' episode in every show about space ever!"--They may not be the evil mirrorverse clones that this reality's Team Voltron are worried they are, but having to face the facts that you come from the bad timeline is a bit rough. It's nothing Team Voltron can't handle while saving the day and dealing with their own hangups at the same time.Now, if only Lance could figure out how to stop calling Keith 'babe' in front of everyone. He's just doing it to piss Keith off, heswears.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 1431°F is the melting point of strontium, which is used in pyrotechnics to burn red, and is combined with copper, which burns blue, to create purple flames. Notably, copper has a much lower melting point.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "We do have an unfortunate tendency to land in hostile realities," Pidge points out.
> 
> "For once, can we try not to start the hostilities, though?" Hunk begs. "I know it can't always be helped, but statistically speaking, we're due for a break, right? Right? Guys?"
> 
> "Well," Lance says after a moment, "there was that one reality a few jumps back where Lotor actually wasn't an omnicidal maniac and flew the Blue Lion."

* * *

 

Things are, per usual, an unmitigated disaster.

Lance drums his fingers over his biceps, measuring the dryness of his palms against the seriousness of the situation. Despite the way his heart is racing, his hands don't shake and his gloves are dry. They've been in worse places, honestly: no one is even immediately or eventually in danger of dying, though that could change at any moment instantly. He works his jaw against the harsh, pulsating throb of the right side of his face, resisting the urge to poke or prod at it. Nothing he has ever done lessens it even for a second.

Even so, for once Lance has full confidence that they'll survive this, too. It's situation: normal, after all - 'all fucked up.' If they've survived eight years of space war and situations where the ridiculousness is only surpassed by how much of an actual death-trap they were, then being towed through dead space by humans back to their home base isn't all that bad.

Or, wait. Is that overconfidence? On second thought, Lance thinks that sounds entirely too much like overconfidence. Shit, he's going to get them all killed with his hubris at this rate.

"Relax," Pidge says, her face coming up on display; the whole image looks strange and muddy, the green of her Lion's emergency lighting clashing with Red's own. Her face is twisted with annoyance, so Lance knows his anxiety is coming across strong through Red's bond. "This is all child's play stuff so far."

"Appropriate," Lance quips, even as channels to the other Lions ripple open across Red's screens. Before Pidge can answer to that, he says, "all that means is that this is a reality where Voltron is in Earth's side. That doesn't say what side that is or even if the morality of that side is anything we're capable of understanding."

"Well - it's probably not the Galra," Hunks says tentatively. "I mean, we haven't seen that reality _yet,_ but it's probably not. Earth wouldn't have joined the Empire, not willingly, anyway."

"Why not?" Allura says, sharp and cool and clinical. "How many realities have we seen where the Altean people have gone mad?"

Hunk narrows his eyes at her image, unimpressed. "Neither you nor Lance really believe that's the case here," he says with the exaggerated patience of someone explaining the obvious to an idiot. Lance has more or less forgotten what any other tone sounds like coming from Hunk to either of them. "I mean, the Earth fleet isn't a bunch of fiery debris sailing through space at the moment, so." He gestures, his jaw set at a belligerent angle, matter settled.

Lance's fingers drum wildly against his biceps as he glares at Hunk's screen, but he keeps his mouth firmly shut; he has no rebuttal to offer to that kind of logic, and judging by the silence on Allura's end, despite her nearly hostile stare, she has nothing to offer either.

"Maybe they just respect my command enough to hold fire until certain," Keith offers, but he's not even looking at their screens, fixated on trying to provoke the Black Lion with something in his dashboard.

That kind of lunacy brings the entire argument to a grinding halt as they exchange looks and then fixate silently on Keith's feed. It takes a few moments for the silence to register with Keith; he eventually looks up, blinking owlishly at the screen. It's hard to tell how much of his pallor is the violet cast of Black's emergency lighting and how much is actual stress, but the nearly luminescent quality to his yellow sclera suggests that he's not half as calm about this whole thing as he's pretending. As if poking through Black's guts wasn't indication enough.

The best response he gets out of them comes from Hunk, who says nothing aloud that his face doesn't express even louder. Keith looks more exhausted than he does angry. "Yeah," he says, so dry Lance is pretty sure at least a few ice comets in the solar system have been spontaneously annihilated, "probably not, huh."

"Babe." It earns him Keith's immediate and jaundiced glower, which is mostly why he uses it in the first place. "You know that I admire that you're still trying to stick with that whole 'virtuous hero-saint' archetype," Lance says, brows pinched and shoulders shrugged. "But someone has to be the incredibly paranoid cynic and-or loose cannon, and well - that's the rest of us."

"I don't actually need help on that point," Keith says sullenly.

He has a point. As hard as Keith is trying to be the Black Paladin that he thinks they need, he's just as cynical and spontaneously violent as the rest of them. If anything, they all learned it from him, really.

"Well, by definition you actually can't do both jobs, so I'm with Lance on this one," Pidge interrupts firmly, because despite all that, they're all trying their best to support him in their own ways. "It's more efficient to spread the work out evenly, anyway. All parts of the whole function longer if they aren't overclocked all the time."

"Thank you, Pidge," Keith says. It would sound grudging if it weren't so fond.

Of all of them, it's Keith's feelings that don't come through the Lions' connections as loud and clearly as the rest of them. Lance used to think that it would change - that as soon as Keith really felt comfortable as their leader, that he would open up. That his connection with Black would curl comfortingly at Lance's neck, the way that Shiro's… or the way it had at first, anyway.

Keith kind of acts like he wants it to, sometimes.

There are things that are easier to want than to actually pursue. Lance is sympathetic and frustrated about it in equal measures, but it's never quite been his place to butt in on the matter since it doesn't actually seem to hinder Keith's ability to lead Voltron. Whatever other difficulties it causes aren't within Lance's purview, as has been made abundantly clear.

"Hunk's right, too," Keith adds doggedly, "since no one seems to think this is a trap or that we're in danger, we might as well let the fleet tow us in. Let's keep things civil with the natives of _this_ reality, okay?"

"I will if they do," Allura says. Her incisors look curiously long, which is another thing Lance should probably keep an eye on, along with the purplish pallor Keith's sporting at the moment.

"We do have an unfortunate tendency to land in hostile realities," Pidge points out.

"For once, can we try not to start the hostilities, though?" Hunk begs. "I know it can't always be helped, but statistically speaking, we're due for a break, right? Right? Guys?"

"Well," Lance says after a moment, "there was that one reality a few jumps back where Lotor actually wasn't an omnicidal maniac and flew the Blue Lion."

"Doesn't count," Allura says, chewing the words like she wants to create a black hole between her teeth.

"Yeah, not really," Hunk agrees with a subtle glance toward Keith's display.

Lance grimaces. He wonders if the Keith if that reality is doing okay - as little as their Keith had liked it, the one that had to live it must have taken to it even worse.

"I guess it must be overdue," he allows, thinking it over.

"Might be," Pidge agrees, reaching up and tilting the glasses on her face until it masks her eyes just so, "or maybe we just haven't seen all the really awful realities yet. We could always just be overdue the other direction."

"No," Hunk says loudly. "No way, no how! You're gonna jinx it! That's it, we've been jinxed! Thanks a lot, Pidge!"

She tilts her glasses to give the clearest image of her narrow, unimpressed glower.

"I don't know, I have a good feeling about this reality," Lance chimes in with his Brightest Star in the Universe voice, his smile wide enough to ache.

"Lance!" The others shout in complaint, Pidge just rolling her eyes.

"Well, if weren't before, we're definitely jinxed now," she drawls, punching her communication window shut. Hunk almost beats her to it with a ridiculous pout on his face, and when he notices everyone else leaving, Keith follows suit.

He's been distracted for weeks now. It hadn't interfered with his duties, but it's starting to become a distraction for the team.

"Lance," Allura says, almost startling him. It's not that he forgot that she's still on so much as he hadn't expected the keen tone or her voice or the sharp look in her eyes. None of them have survived being paladins unscathed, but Allura always comes as the biggest shock when they run across a reality that's been kinder to her.

To Lance, she will always be the Space Princess he met all those years ago, with a courageous heart, stars in her eyes and hair like a nebulae.

That's all still true, but the core of her has also been forged and shaped in starfire since, and her presentation reflects it. "Are you okay?" She asks, her gaze sharp and interrogative.

Like most cuts made with the sharpest of edges, one sees blood long before the reality of the wound is fully realized.

She relents, only slightly. "Your eye, I mean," she says. "It's not bothering you too much?"

"What, this? No," he scoffs, and smiles to prove it. His hand pops up of its own accord to frame the line of his jaw. "The whole loss of depth perception sucks, of course, but I've gotten used to it."

Her mouth flattens. It's a pathetic attempt at a smile, but Lance doesn't know how to fix that for her when it's because of something he doesn't know how to fix about himself.

"Yes, well," Allura says, breaking her gaze. "You should be wary of trusting this reality too fast, Lance. Enough similarities makes it quite easy to overlook signs of something being very wrong."

The guarded brightness of his smile fades into something more comfortable and warm. "Thanks, Allura," he says. "I'll keep that in mind. You've really been watching our back - and now that I have this huge blindspot, it's really helped me a lot!"

She sighs. "Your blind spots haven't changed at all, regardless of the state of your vision," she says, but the resignation is too warm to take seriously. "Be safe, Lance."

"You, too, Princess."

Lance falls back in his chair after her line closes, the smile falling from his face as he grits his teeth until the corded muscle on his cheek presses against the bone somehow and makes the urge to drive his bayard through his skull back off just two centimeters. He can do this. Lance can always do it. No matter what shitty hand he's been dealt, he knows he can handle it. He always does. It's not even that bad - the others have had it worse. He can do this much. He grits his teeth until it feels like they'll crack, or his jaw will, or his face or his head.

It's fortunate that pain doesn't transmit over the Lion bonds. He remembers what it was like when it was Pidge, and he knows from then that it only feels like relentless tension - and knows, too, that he always feels like relentless tension. He can handle this.

They've all survived worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not only is it parallel universe travel, but it's also a bit of time travel. Canon Timeline is just post S7, when the Bad Timeline Crew pop in. The BTC (Bad Timeline Crew) are roughly 25, with age variations for Pidge and Keith in appropriate directions, while CTC (Canon Timeline Crew) are the ~17-18 age range, with appropriate deviations for Keith and Pidge.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Can we not talk about me dying?" the Lance of the present reality demands somewhat shrilly. Come to think of it, the other Allura is looking a little distressed as well.
> 
> Oh, hey, that's alarming. Lance is going to have to keep a much closer eye on this reality than he thought.

* * *

 

The question of whether or not the humans are aligned with Voltron is answered about the time their escort hits Earth's solar system. Or, that wasn't exactly in question in the first place, given the way the commander of the fleet had reacted to finding a little of _very similar_ ships chilling in the void of space, but all the same.

"Now that's nostalgic as fuck," Pidge says when the five Lions of Voltron come into view in their original, almost boxy shape.

"Yeah, only not in the good way. I wasn't happy about upgrading the Lions, but," Hunk says, allowing common sentiment to complete his sentence.

Well, mostly common sentiment. None of them had exactly knowingly signed up for a space war, but Lance was always in favor of cool weapons and staying alive. While he loves them, ten thousand year old tech isn't exactly the most defensible. _Durable,_ maybe, but defensible? Not against the kind of weapons currently being built, not once those weapon builders knew to make them in the first place.

"You know, come to think of it, what if they think we're from the evil mirrorverse," Lance says, considering the sleek, menacing look of their own lions. "Keith has a scar and I have an eyepatch and Hunk hasn't shaved in a week, we totally fit the bill for the 'evil mirrorverse clone' episode in every show about space ever!"

"Lance! I'm warning you! Stop jinxing us," Hunk yells.

"The only warning that needs to get given here is the warning that you're going to turn that into a meme," he shoots back, annoyed.

The last time things being jinxed turned into a meme, they'd nearly destroyed the reality they'd been in because Lance had developed a nervous tic about it and the _last_ person who needs a nervous tic is the team sniper. It's just a bad time all around.

Before a real argument can break out between them, the disorienting sensation of their Lions receiving a joint communication request brings it all to a halt. Keith acknowledges it, and their Lion turn the query to their pilots: accept? It's mostly for the novelty of it that Lance accepts immediately, though a moment of consideration probably would have assured it either way. Nearly everyone treats the Lions as a fleet under the command of the Black Paladin, which… basically, yeah. Yeah, they all generally bow to the Black Paladin as their leader - but it's a lot more complex than just that, too.

And Lance is the Red Paladin. As second in command, it's his job to stand at the Black paladin's side and support him. When he's given the opportunity, he always does.

He and Keith are the only ones that accept the communications request, although that's not a huge surprise. The others piggyback off Black's feed, listening in one-sidedly without actually inserting themselves into the conversation.

The whole dazzling array of the other team Voltron comes up on Red's screen. Nostalgia is right - Lance almost effortlessly recognizes every single paladin on the screen. It's kind of like looking into an old yearbook and getting sucker punched by old memories. Well - except for two of the paladins: Keith and Allura. While physically much the same, there's… something gentle to their eyes in particular that is kind of weirding Lance out.

"What the quiznack," the face of Lance's folliable youth squawks helpfully. The young faces of both Hunk and Pidge - precious and bright and _whole_ \- blink at the images of Keith and Lance with gobsmacked expressions.

"Aww," Lance coos, unable to help himself. He clasps his hands  together and leans forward. "Look at them! They're so _cute!_ Is this your first time meeting reality travelers? I was pretty creeped out the first time I met myself - although that didn't happen until a few jumps later, after I met everyone else's doubles a few times and was was kind of prepared for it. Which is kind of messed up, now that I think about it. Why do I _die_ in so many realities?"

"As many times as you have almost died in this one," the present reality's Pidge says, sounding like her brain and mouth are going on automatic despite her shock, "maybe you _surviving_ is the exception. Given multiverse theory and all. If a million possibilities exist, there has to be one where you survive."

Lance blinks at her, noting out of the corner of his eye that his younger doppelganger seems distressed. "You know," he says. "That sounds about right." That's just his luck that in most universes, he's just. Dead. Bingo-bango, no second chances.

Lance spares a thought to all the Lances that never got revived out there trying to fix that solar shield. Sucks to be them. Or, probably, anyway; the jury's out on that.

"Can we not talk about me _dying?_ " the Lance of the present reality demands somewhat shrilly. Come to think of it, the other Allura is looking a little distressed as well.

Oh, hey, that's alarming. Lance is going to have to keep a much closer eye on this reality than he thought.

"So what do you want here with us?" The present reality's Keith demands. He has the same sharp scar across his cheek and jaw that Lance's Keith does, but none of the pallor, and his eyes are white and gray  and… even in his fierce determination, soft. He's eyeing the countenance of his counterpart mistrustfully, and - yeah. Evil mirrorverse clones. Lance reads it loud and clear on his face.

"It has nothing to do with Voltron or humanity," their own Keith says, and Lance wants to cringe a little bit, because Keith's tightly controlled presentation, blunt and void of any sentiment, seems to weirdly reassure a lot of dignitaries and attaches they encounter - but it's also the wrong tact to take with this younger version of himself.

Lance can't really fault him. Even in the realities they come face-to-face with their counterparts, Keith is usually hot on their quarry's trail and never actually has to work with them, and there are a disturbing number of realities where Keith isn't a part of the team and the point is moot anyway.

That doesn't mean Lance or the others haven't had to work with those realities' native Keith, and this one is more familiar than most.

"What Keith _means_ to say," Lance breaks in, loosening his posture and widening his eye, "is that we kind of came flying into this blind. We're in pursuit of - well, you could call her a fugitive? I mean, no one has leveled any _actual_ charges against her, but that's probably just because it's difficult to do to a reality jumper who completely destroys realities like some kind of really bad tempered Goldilocks who hasn't found her 'just right.'"

The other Keith stares at him and says, like the knowledge has immediately exhausted him beyond endurance, "you mean you aren't going to outgrow that?"

Lance blinks back. "Huh?"

"You don't 'outgrow' ADHD," their own Keith says, giving the other Black Paladin the languid, heavy eyed look of a cat on his last nerve and considering evisceration. It's frighteningly effective with his Galra eyes, yellow like molten metal and pitch obsidian.

Keith has never once learned a single thing ever about 'subtlety' - only obfuscation. Lance is pretty sure that the other Keith was just being the usual kind of dick that even their own Keith still is when the mood strikes him, but he's learned not to get in-between Keith's weird Galra leadership instincts. Any threat, no matter how minor, always ends up being marked for death.

Keith attempting to kill himself in this reality would probably be bad, though unfortunately not a first.

While no one on the local team is likely to forget Lance's apparently previous-to-this undisclosed disorder, he takes his younger counterpart's distress into consideration and does jazz hands. "Surprise! All that fun stuff aside, reality destroying fugitive, anyone? Just wondering if we were going to focus on the important thing here."

The other Keith - the one that's not their Keith, not-Keith - still looks like he's had something rudely shoved up his butt. He manages to change gears anyway, boxing up his emotions in a way that is annoyingly familiar as he turns his attention to his team.

"Could be," not-Hunk allows under his leader's interrogative gaze. "That second pulse that we thought was some kind of weird echo? Could instead have been a second arrival. Although there usually is some kind of rebound for this kind of thing."

"Like with Lotor and the Quintessence field?" not-Keith asks.

"Well - no, not exactly," he hedges. "But until wormholes entered the equation, the problem with something like 'warp speed' would have been that whatever travels at warp speed inadvertently becomes some kind of death ray when it arrived wherever it was going."

They're… really way too young to be talking about Lotor and the Quintessence field. That's concerning.

"Obviously we managed," their own Keith says impatiently. "Unless you have another explanation for our presence?"

It's really kind of shocking to watch Keith take an honest dislike to himself based only on conflicting priorities, and yet Lance is watching it all play out in front of him. The worst part is that the priority is actually the _same one_ and shouldn't even necessarily come in conflict, and yet Lance is pretty sure the only reason the situation hasn't escalated is because not-Keith is practicing some Blade breathing exercises, and Keith doesn't actually kill people just because he doesn't like them, no matter what his face says.

"So where is fugitive of yours?" not-Keith demands.

"Well, unlike the Lions, her ship is actually meant to do this kind of thing," Lance says helpfully. "It's not like she was native to _our_ reality. We managed to chase her off, but -" he spreads his hands helplessly. "Leaving it like that seemed like a bad idea, so: the game of cat and mouse."

"We're on emergency power," Keith says; a kind of unexpected admission considering his attitude up until now, but a welcome one. Keith's the one that wanted to avoid hostilities, anyway. "Based on her previous attempts, we have a good idea if where to start the hunt, but we won't be able to do that until the Lions are powered up."

Not-Keith doesn't like the sound of that, which - if their reality reflects Lance and Keith's own and Lance has pinned the time frame correctly, then that's understandable. But then he cocks his head in a way that Lance hasn't seen in years - the 'listening to his Lion' way - and relents.

Black is vouching for them. Nice.

Red reflects this thought out at Black in amusement, then reflects Black's responding bemusement back. Lance turns the sensation over in his head; it's different having the emotions reflected at you, removed from context. He reaches out to Red, and Red confirms more or less that Black's response had basically been 'naturally.'

Black is hilariously literal at times, and not in the humorous or spiteful ways of Blue or Red. It makes Lance a little thankful for Black and Keith both being partnered together, given their sense of humor.

"And you'll need a place to do that, I guess," not-Keith says reluctantly.

"That'd be great!" Lance says brightly before Keith can say something that puts his counterpart on edge again. "Usually we just coast through the void of space until the Lions can absorb enough ambient radiation, but if we could stretch our legs, maybe get some actual food…?"

He trails off hopefully, pinning not-Keith with the expression he uses on all well meaning but reluctant political leaders they come to be reliant on in their endeavors. It's more on reflex than anything he does on purpose; none of his looks have ever actually worked on Keith, although sometimes he gets entertaining reactions from Keiths who have never met a Lance before.

Not-Keith immediately gifts him with a scowl so sulky it just barely avoids being in the dictionary next to the definition of 'to pout.'

Next to him, a little lower and fitted next to not-Pidge's display, not-Lance looks exhausted and a bit sulky himself. "Well," he says with fictitious lightness, "what could possibly go wrong with that?"

"Lance!" The entire team choruses, as if any Lance wouldn't be sharply aware of the dangerous things he's tempting with a statement like that.

"I don't know, guys," not-Hunk says doubtfully, "I mean, this doesn't exactly look like a trap, but - what if they're expecting that?"

Hunk will always pretty much be Lance's favorite, in so far as he's able to pick a favorite out of the team, and this is precisely why. Hunk's ability to immediately find literally any situation worthy of distrust has been a boon to them way more often than it's been a hindrance. It's good to hear these kinds of things out loud. How Hunk has managed to keep his sanity in the face of all of Voltron is hard to understand, but Lance loves him for it.

"Yeah, well, my preference is that you turn back around and forget you ever saw us," Keith, king of making beneficial political connections, says. "We won't be staying long in Earth's system."

Lance's vain side hopes that his face won't one day freeze into the tight, bemused smirk it always twists into when he's listening to Keith bungle something they really can't afford to fuck up.

"Babe," he says. He entertains the delightful fantasy that the incised glare that Keith shoots him is instead a reserved expression with the spark of something softer and more kind somewhere in eyes more white and gray than sulfur and obsidian.

"Lance," Keith acknowledges, the way he's acknowledged a hundred people just doing their job but in the wrong place at the wrong time and so they ended up between Voltron and saving their reality. Nominally, they're good guys, but ever since Keith and Pidge figured out that they left each reality _anyway,_ there was little reason to indulge in fluff activities like - oh - not breaking a thousand local laws.

Lance may have had a hand in them realizing that, and he's honestly never regretted anything more.

Aware that if he opens his mouth, he's going to insert his foot, his ankle, his calf and knee and possibly his thigh, Lance settles for giving Keith's display a look while yelling loudly at Red to tell Black to tell Keith to let Lance just handle this whole thing. Of all of them, he's the one that handles meeting alternate reality versions of themselves the best - he blames not having to meet himself for several realities until he was already used to the idea - and Keith's approach is… indelicate, to put it one way.

Keith scowls at him so ferociously that he seems to be mere seconds from sprouting claws, all the better to have Lance wearing a blindfold with, even though Lance is pretty sure that Keith's not physiologically capable of actually growing claws despite the other ambiguous effects of his alien heritage.

Lance squints back, well aware that he's already courted disaster and is only making his situation worse with every careless word and flippant remark he makes that undermines Keith's leadership; he'll take his licks the next time they square up to fight about it, Keith doesn't actually need to handle _every last aspect_ of being a 'leader,' his job is specifically to _delegate,_ and he _will_ be standing by that and repeat it as many times as necessary, _Keith._

Keith's face relaxes with half-lidded disdain, apparently satisfied enough with that acknowledgement to set his chiseled cheekbone against the knuckles of one hand and to flip his fingers at Lance: _be my guest then._

Lance really hates that guy. It's no wonder things always get stupidly intense between them.

It's not like Lance is undermining him because he enjoys it or anything, it's just that they can't afford for Keith to burn any bridges that they might be able to use. Keith knows that, usually, but whatever has been distracting him has also made him prickly and disinclined to compromise with anyone outside the team even when they really should. It's not like they're overflowing with options here, and maybe _Keith's_ okay with floating through the void of space instead of meeting their younger counterparts halfway, but everyone is cranky as it is and they're running on empty where it comes to supplies. Lance is down to three doses of human-safe painkiller in his medkit and only a handful of gauze and wraps, and he's been afraid to touch the entire kit in case there's some kind of awful emergency.

Red must be sharing something of his thoughts, because the disdain on Keith's face shifts to blank disinterest. Unlike Lance's flights of fancy earlier, this really is a thin veneer over discomfort and guilt, which - yeah. Lance will have to address that, too. The only worse leader than an incised Keith is one that feels guilty for something.

"As we were saying," Lance says primly, returning his attention to their younger counterparts. He doesn't linger over the vaguely bewildered and weirded out expressions in various degrees across the team, because he can compartmentalize and focus on what is actually important here. "We won't be inconveniencing you long. We happened to be in the area when Brelyu crossed dimensions, but what she's looking for isn't anywhere near Earth's system." His eye darts over their faces, meeting their gazes soberly as he lets the weight of it come down over his shoulders. "I know you don't have a reason to trust us yet, but if you want your reality intact? You have to let us go after her before long."

That's obviously not the end of it, judging by the look on both not-Keith and not-Allura's faces. Hunk and Pidge are, as always, prepared to let someone else call the shots, and not-Lance is sitting this round out from what Lance himself personally knows to be the awkward sensation of trying to judge himself, which is always a bit weird and and tends to result in rude surprises.

Even still, Lance isn't worried about any reservations the local Voltron team might have about their mission; he's the ideal person for this situation in general, but especially in realities where he's still alive or at least was alive long enough to make an impression on the team. No one really has to know him long to realize that all his attempts to lie or dissemble are blatant and clumsy.

In eight years of space war, three of which have been spent jumping realities in pursuit of an omnicidal maniac, Lance has learned a lot of things and become capable of some others that would shock and appall the boy that he used to be - but Lance can only openly lie blatantly to someone's face at a success ratio of about 15/85 in favor of failure.

"... fine," not-Keith says reluctantly. "We'll escort you to the ship."

Lance answers with a big smile, shooting a smug look toward Keith's screen; for all the good that it does him since Keith is busy with Black's controls. Well, whatever. Lance entertains himself with the idea that Keith disengaging means that he's relieved, and he's relaxed about it and feels secure leaving it to Lance. Like the best delusions, it's grounded in fact: Keith has trusted him many times to get the team to safety.

Just never when Keith's there to do it himself, that's all. Which isn't weird. Keith's their leader. Obviously he'll lead.

The bond with Red crackles like some distant, muted roar, of an engine or thunder or a raging wildfire, muffled deep within Lance's chest. The Lions of Voltron, much like the lions of Earth, don't actually have the capacity to purr. They're not actually lions at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah, i'm just gonna .... 'not-[character]' the Canon Timeline Crew. it's easier than trying to come up with actual handles for them all, and honestly, after all the realities Lance has seen, he'd probably have long since given up on coming up with unique identifiers, too. 
> 
> Both Keiths just honestly want to look after and take care of their teams, and so they're?? growling and snarling at each other over it??? Both Lance and Keith strike me as types who have little patience for alternate selves despite whatever compassion they might have for them. Keith in particular seems like the kind to always be seething about what a dick his alt self is. No, Keith, you are the dick. And then Keith was a tsundere. 
> 
> Lance isn't being a particularly reliable narrator lmao. he has his reasons.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Hunk, help me out here," Lance begs, turning to the last bastion of sanity.
> 
> "Sorry, no can do," Hunk says, not without sympathy. "I resigned myself to this blowing up in our faces from the moment you started undermining Keith. Nothing ever goes well when you two start that up."
> 
> "He is right," Pidge agrees like the tiny little traitor that she is.

* * *

 

Although they're more or less playing dead, coasting dark through space while the Lions absorb ambient energy from cosmic sources, they are't nearly as helpless as the limp posture of their Lions suggests at all. Still, not one of them twitch even an inch as they're towed to port by their alternate selves. Despite not really being made to tow ships, the Lions have a much easier time of it than the Earth fleet did, purely because a battle patrol ship _also_ wasn't a salvage tug.

"You figure Earth has salvage tugs yet?" Lance muses aloud.

"Probably not," Hunk says. "The ships in that fleet are probably - what?"

"First generation Post-Altean Tech, I'd say," Pidge chimes in.

Allura sighs. "Of course you're free to design it as you like," she says, "but _must_ you?"

Ignoring her usual laments over the state of things, Hunk continues: "so there's no way anyone who'd build a ship for salvage would have gotten their hands on that quality of spaceflight, yet. I doubt anyone but Gal-Gar has it."

"That's a shame," Lance says, somewhat forlorn. "There sure is a lot of debris in space."

"You can follow your dreams of being a space pirate after we defeat Brelyu," Pidge says in an uncharacteristic act of patience.

"Can I really, though?"

No one answers his maudlin question because it's just a stupid flight of fancy, anyway, and they all know it. As if Lance would ever leave his only family ever again. As if being a salvage-slash-space-pirate would be worth it, without Hunk and Pidge to maintain the ship and know which parts are the best ones. As if Keith or Allura could ever be meant for something so comfortable and mundane.

Mostly Keith, Lance admits in his own head, if only because it has long since stopped costing him anything to be honest with himself. Lance _can_ do a lot of things, but he doesn't think he'll ever not _want_ to follow Keith, despite everything.

Keith's not going to stop fighting the Good Fight, so. A soldier's life for Lance.

At least he's good at it.

"That is," Allura says, hesitating over the words only slightly: "definitely a ship based on the Castle of Lions."

Yeah, more or less, Lance thinks, watching it come up on the display. It's far from the first time that they've encountered a replica. A few realities back, there'd actually been an entire network of ships like it - different stations for the Paladins to retreat to as necessary. The Lions themselves couldn't be replicated, nor the Altean semi-science, since in most realities, Allura was too wary to share her energy that way anymore. But the Castle itself? Allura is rarely jealous of its secrets, and so most realities where the Gal-Gar know about Voltron, there's usually at least one.

"What would Coran think?" Lance asks. Although recognizably based off the Castle, this one is - strange. Familiar. There is something about it that reminds him of the Lions themselves. Only, that's not quite it. His head throbs. Under the eyepatch, the skin is wet.

"Well, it's not Altean," she says, "and it's not his Grandfather's legacy, nor is it home. But I think that he would love it."

The tone of her voice matches the yearning throb of his heart in his chest. Some worlds don't know how good they've got it.

The bay of the ship is by far large enough for fit all ten Lions with ease, and the Lions muster what energy they need to catch themselves on their feet as gravity takes a gentle hold on them before immediately sinking to the ground. The ripple of their bond assures them, and the Lions open to allow their paladins to leave the relative safety of the cockpits.

Lance hops down out of Red's jaw, jogging over to meet up with Pidge and Allura in their standard landing formations. It's unlikely that anyone is going to attack them in this case, but habits like this are good; Hunk and Keith quickly join them, and they turn to the local team who are approaching.

Other than their obvious youth, they're fairly standard for a same-face reality. Lance struggles briefly with how innocent and _whole_ they are, other than some minor grievances that have taken some of the stars out if their eyes. Lance has seen people that age be both younger and older than those years, and while these kids have faced some trials, it's nothing that has come near to truly testing them.

"Whoa!" Not-Lance says enthusiastically, coming closer than the others - still far out of the danger zone, but amiable, warm. Lance recognizes it as his 'might as well get along until you prove me wrong' default. "Nice armor!"

Lance and Hunk and Pidge exchange looks over themselves and with each other, even as not-Hunk is muttering about how he's really feeling the 'evil mirrorverse clone' vibes. All the black isn't a popular choice in many of the realities they've visited, but Lance has found that the matte black armor gets them shot at a lot less.

The traditional colors of their armor comes in on the Quintessence vents, particularly along the thighs and the Voltron chevron on their chests - blue for Lance, red for Keith, pink for Allura - although they all have detailing in the appropriate colors in respect of the Lions to whom they're bound.

"What are those symbols on the sides of your suits?" Not-Pidge asks quizzically, leaning in.

"It almost looks Altean," not-Allura says, also leaning forward.

Allura takes off her helmet, briefly shaking out her hair. "It _is_ Altean," she says firmly. "If you know Romelle, she would be able to read it. It's the form New Altea gave their writings - not the one that Lotor forced them to keep using to 'preserve the Altean culture.'" She spits the words with venom, not that anyone could blame her for that.

The local team had mostly been staring at her in shock in awe in the first place, but - looking to their own Allura, by far not the tallest or largest member, Lance guesses it could just be how intimidating it is to face a pissed of Altean. At the reminder of what must been a fresh wound if Lance is guessing the timeline correctly, they frown in discomfort and sympathy.

"Hey!" not-Hunk chirps, "you cut your hair! It looks great by the way - I mean, it looks great long, too." He turns slightly to address this to their own Allura, who couldn't care less about anyone's opinion on her appearance at the moment, her posture taunt and her hands clasped together as she stares at her counterpart with wide, grim eyes. "But that's a good cut on you! Somehow I just never thought you'd - cut it? It's so pretty - well, but this is war, so…"

"Thank you," Allura says graciously, kindly trying to rescue the younger Hunk from his nervous ramblings. "Lance cut it for me. It seemed-" She hesitates, reaching up to touch at the curly ends where they loop just below the lobes of her long, graceful ears. "Appropriate."

Lance doesn't really deserve credit for that. Any of the style looking good is a credit to Allura and Allura only. He'd tried to get her to at least have Veronica style it the first time since he was sure he could maintain it after that, but the situation ended up being slightly more complicated than he'd suspected.

Not-Allura looks as though she's just gotten news that she's been dreading, but isn't surprised by, so that's. That's just great. Amazing.

Allura inhales and changes the subject. "As for the writings," she says, turning to present the long length of her side, exaggerated by the amazonian proportions she favors these days, "they're traditional wishes for success and safety. New Alteans used to sew them inside the seams of their clothing."

While the New Alteans had been hiding their superstitions, the lettering is blatantly displayed in the open on the black nanosuits that fit, skin tight, under their actual armor. The brilliant blue of Allura's Lion makes the densely spaced lettering shimmer like the clearest of oceans, glassy and blue, in a long line from toe to armpit, and from neck to fingertip. When it doesn't look like circuitry to Lance, it looks like -

"Or, if you favor magic and superstition," Allura continues, leveling a look at Lance that makes him defensively cross his arms over his chest, "these are incantation runes."

"Well, what do you call the fact that I can set things on fire now?" he asks testily.

The glare she gives him is sharp and promising pain next time they square up, but honestly, Allura always kicks his ass and he's not impressed with the threat of more if the same. So what if she's honestly tried explaining Altean alchemy to him in light of everything? No matter what terms she puts it in, it's basically just weird space magic.

"Wait," not-Allura says, "you can access your Lions' powers outside the Lions themselves?"

"Not exactly," Allura says, smoothing back into her diplomat persona. "The suits are a tool that we use to to access the Lions' powers. They were designed and infused by the people of New Altea, as a gift, to honor Voltron's efforts."

The pride and love she feels for her people comes through clear and untarnished by everything that has happened to them and her. It visibly softens not only her younger counterpart, but the entire local Voltron team toward Allura - but no matter how sharp her eyes become, or how dark as the stars in them are forcibly extinguished, she's always had that effect on people. Whatever the length of her hair, she was raised as a ruler of people, and that's a truth she can never put behind her.

"Uh, no offense," not-Hunk says delicately, "but I feel even less great about having weaponized mirrorverse clones loose in the ship."

Logical. Smart. Probably nothing Lance really needs to respond to with, "Well, just don't give us a reason to hurt you," in that particularly pleasant tone of voice. He honestly means it, but the moment he hears himself say it - _yikes._

It's not like he _forgot_ that when they're perceived as being stronger or more dangerous, that's a threat, but he doesn't _mean_ it like one, honest.

"Unlike some people we know, no one here actually enjoys hurting people," Keith chimes in, a shade above complete neutrality.

"Uh, yeah," not-Hunk says with such a lack of reassurance that if not for the lack of hardship and gravel in his throat, he could be mistaken for their own Hunk, "the problem with that is knowing what you define as a justifiable reason to hurt someone."

Keith pops off his helmet and gives his head a sharp shake to shrug off the helmet hair. "Basically, don't hurt other people," he says bluntly, leveling a bright, glowering stare at the other team, and _yeah,_ he is definitely a bit purple around the edges, so that's great. Proved a second later when the corner of his lip peels back from sharp teeth as he says, easily, "and if you so much as look wrong at my team, that counts, too."

The laugh that bursts out of Lance is loud and slightly hysteric. He waves his arms wildly, shoving forward. "What a _wild_ joke you have there, buddy!" he says, listening to his own attempt at dissembling wobble wildly like a two-legged chair. "This guy's sense of humor! Am I right!"

Probably not the most convincing attempt in face of the local team being so similar to themselves, but _holy shit,_ Keith, what the fuck?

"I know what I said," Keith says mulishly, like the asshole he is.

Alright, no one ever said that trying to shoulder the responsibilities of being Black Paladin was ever going to make Keith 'Can't We Just Fight' Kogane into a diplomat. If they had, Lance would happily and loudly declare them a liar.

Keith's probably just responding out of reflex to the shock and alarm that had come over the local team when he'd taken his helmet off, but just because his first reaction is always to go for the throat doesn't make it a _good_ reaction. The kids were likely caught off guard; the mirroring on their helmets works like a charm when the faces under them aren't more familiar to you than your own. Obviously they'd seen _enough_ of Keith and Lance's faces to recognize them, but not enough to realize just what an incredible amount of pressure that Keith's under at the moment.

As if their own Keith had never come back to them with wild and feral eyes, beaten and bloodied with bruises that seemed to endlessly spread green and lavender all over his skin, and failing to warm to pink for endless months and months and months after the wounds had healed.

Or - hey. Maybe he hadn't?

"He's come down with space madness," Lance excuses at the local team, pleased to see that they've somewhat gotten their reaction under control. He pops his own helmet off and gives them his best well-meaning-idiot smile. "It's kind of - you know," he bends in, hiding his mouth behind the backs of his fingers as if Keith's super galra hearing won't catch it all the same: " _made him a bit funny._ "

" _Oh,_ " not-Pidge says, the only one to voice their shock and horror aloud.

It's not like Lance doesn't know what they're looking at. Even if he weren't still getting used to a much flatter field of vision, the way it constantly throbs and aches would be a keen enough reminder. It's worse if he moves too suddenly or laughs too loud. It's his right eye. And he's the 'sharpshooter.' As if he could forget for even an instant.

Before their reaction can cramp his style too badly, Pidge sighs loudly and pops off her helmet as well. Her eyes gleam with golden diodes as she presents herself, the left arm thrust out. It and the leg on the same side ripple, the black nanosuit peeling back to reveal the hollows that have opened in both limbs. "Fucking surprise," she sings out, "I'm only _mostly_ human these days. Matt always warned me this would happen, and look at that - he was right." Dropping her arm, she levels a fierce, annoyed stare at the local team. "Are we done with this yet? I'm tired and I'm hungry, and we do this _every time._ It was old after the second time."

"Not every time," Lance objects. "Sometimes everyone's too busy shooting at each other and dying for nice, polite, calm introductions."

Most of the time, actually. Usually they don't meet under such pleasant circumstances.

Pidge harrumphs, crossing her arms and giving him a jaundiced look. "Well, we could fix that really quick," she says, raising her arm, her helmet hanging from her fingers like a flag. "I volunteer."

"Alright," he says loudly, turning on the others, "no one is allowed to shoot Pidge, because I personally don't want to deal with breaking Keith out of high security containment for murder."

"Why not?" Keith demands, frowning at him like _Lance_ is in the wrong here. "You've done it before."

"I don't like being a criminal!" he shouts back.

"Well, I'm tired if being made a spectacle of," Pidge complains loudly, because both she and Keith are awful people who have embrace amorality, which only proves Lance's theory that attractive people - and cute kids, like Pidge used to be - have no sense of responsibility for their own actions.

"Hunk, help me out here," Lance begs, turning to the last bastion of sanity.

"Sorry, no can do," Hunk says, not without sympathy. "I resigned myself to this blowing up in our faces from the moment you started undermining Keith. Nothing ever goes well when you two start that up."

"He is right," Pidge agrees like the tiny little traitor that she is.

Allura puts her hands up, taking a physical step to the side. "I'm abstaining," she says primly.

Keith doesn't look entirely happy with the situation, but there's certainly a powerful level of schadenfreude to be found on his face. Lance glares venomously. It's all his fault in the first place; if he hadn't started being way too intense and honest about his feelings instead of sticking to his virtuous hero-saint persona, none of this would have happened. It's _fine_ if Keith thinks murder is the best way to protect the team but he can't just say that! It scares people! Scared people are stupid people and stupid people do stupid things!

"Right! Well, I'm terrified," not-Hunk says brightly.

"I'm not exactly reassured, either," not-Allura says delicately.

"They're just bullying Lance like usual," not-Pidge says, unimpressed, twitching her glasses. "I know Keith's scary sometimes, but he wouldn't murder someone. Well. Not directly anyway."

Lance doesn't believe her for a second, mostly because their own Pidge looks smug about it. It still makes everyone relax about it a bit though, so Lance will take his reprieves where he can get them.

"I really am tired and hungry, though," Pidge says, " _and_ tired of being a spectacle. Is there anyway we can take negotiations or whatever this is to the cafeteria or something?"

"Fine," not-Keith says after a moment, eyeballing his counterpart suspiciously the entire time.

That just means that it's time to meet the platoon of Gal-Gar troops that have gotten the short straw of keeping them under guard. Despite everything, the castle ship was probably funded by the Earth government, and therefore technically their property. Only once when they were tangled up in the local government had Voltron itself ended up under Garrison command. That. Hadn't been. Great.

The only redeeming feature of that was how Alfor had made the Lions so picky about their pilots.

Lance disregards that old hat for dropping back to where Keith is guarding their rear, allowing Allura to take point with the local team. "Honestly," he huffs, "you have to charge the Garrison head-on like a kamikaze commando _one time…_ "

"It was a very traumatic one time," Keith says, but he doesn't sound half defensive enough for that to even be the root of the problem here.

Lance purses his mouth, studying him closely for a second. Keith kind of blinks and skirts his gaze Lance's way, a glimmer of violet in the heart if his eyes that Lance isn't normally close enough to see.

"What?" he says.

Lance hums, squinting, before he backs off a little. The middle of a busy corridor under armed guard isn't really the time to go prying in Keith's affairs, not the least of which because Lance would rather not get told off in front of anyone, let alone _everyone._ "Nothing," he excuses, and ignores the way Keith has turned his inspection back on him.

"Okay," he allows.

Of course whoever is in charge of the ship don't allow unknown combatants of dubious intentions into the cafeteria with everyone else who might be having their lunch hour; instead, they get the whole 'dubious ally' treatment that Lance vaguely remembers from the days of the Coalition. A meeting room is temporarily transformed into something not entirely unlike a banquet hall, and whether the local team have eaten already or not, they join them.

"Earth food," Lance sighs regretfully, even as he starts forking some multicultural conglomeration onto his plate, "why is it always Earth food?"

"I dunno, man," Hunk sympathizes. "I'm getting bad associations here."

Lance butts up against him, prodding the point of his chin into the thick muscle of his shoulder. "You and me both, buddy. Don't get me wrong, I loved it the first time, but it's getting to be like that one meal you ate and then got a stomach virus about and never wanted to see ever again because it just reminds you of spending several hours in front of the toilet." He stares morosely at the spread.

"Calories are calories," Pidge reminds them darkly. "Just put it in your face and think of Voltron. I don't want to deal with either of you fainting again because you're too dumb to actually eat food."

"Okay, but," Hunk says, "you also ate that weird pond scum that smelled like something died in a tar pit fifty million years ago, so I'm pretty sure that you have a different idea of what actual torture is."

"Yeah!" Lance chimes in.

"It's not like the pond scum was going to _poison_ me," she huffs. "And I'm not dumb enough that I'd rather go hungry than sit through something only mildly unpleasant."

" _Just eat the food,_ " Keith orders with a few too many sharp teeth and glowing eyes, as if that's supposed to impress anyone.

"In my defense, Lance is the one that fainted," Hunk says quickly, taking his plate and leaving Lance stumbling as he turns away.

" _Hey!_ " Lance yelps.

"I would have thought that Earth food would have made you happy," not-Pidge says, blinking up at him.

She's so _shimpy_ at this age, Lance thinks, looking down at her. He's not sure where she gets it from - a grandparent, maybe? - especially given the size her brother grew into. Lance kind of wants to pick her up and cuddle her a bit, except that he's pretty sure that she'd bite and kick if he tried.

"Well, I mean, at first, sure," Lance says, returning his attention to filling his plate before he can do something dumb, "pretty sure I cried about it, actually. But like - we've been jumping realities for three years now, I think?"

"Closer to four," Allura corrects, frowning absently as she pokes uncertainly at a cheesy dish. She looks over at Pidge, momentarily setting aside the problem with dairy. "It's difficult to track given that timelines don't match up exactly and we're not always able to mark time, but as far as our Pidge has been able to determine, it's been nearly four Earth years."

"Right, well, sometimes we end up close to Earth, or at least humans," Lance continues, "and let me tell you, it doesn't always go as well as this meeting has."

"So far, anyway," Allura adds. To the untrained ear, she would only sound reserved.

Lance clearly hears the sharp edge of a threat under her mild words. He pouts at her, for what good that does. She hasn't exactly been showing them off, but he's pretty sure her incisors haven't shortened at all since their discussion after the Earth fleet first discovered them floating vaguely through the void of space.

Some resourceful soul has located a perfectly round table for the two Voltron teams to sit at, but that hasn't stopped the two Keiths from choosing directly opposite sides of it. The local team has been better fed and are only really participating in the meal to the effect of making it less awkward for everyone, so they're all seated: not-Allura and not-Hunk to either side of not-Keith, with Lance's counterpart at not-Allura's side and not-Pidge at not-Hunk's. Sometime in the interim, Coran has shown up and has seated himself at not-Pidge's other side. He could be a carbon copy of the Altean that they left back in their own reality, if a little less weighed down by everything.

Without hesitating, Lance drops himself into the seat to Keith's left, which his teammates have pointedly left open. Pidge has taken Keith's right side, and Allura is sitting on her other side. Not-Lance looks hilariously conflicted to be sandwiched between the two Alluras, especially given the sharp way the local one is eyeballing the situation. Hunk sits to Lance's right, between the rest of the team and the local Coran.

Not-Keith has his arms folded across his chest, looking grim and serious with that familiar scar etched across his cheek. He doesn't give the food on his plate even a passing glance. Lance doesn't remember him at the food table, actually, but he hadn't really bothered with paying that much attention.

Next to him, their own Keith sits, feet flat to the floor, hands laid loosely on his thighs. He looks equally ready to ignore the meat-heavy pile of food on his plate, and so Lance casually knocks his elbow hard against Keith's as he reaches for his fork, digging in without further ado. After a moment, he hears the fork clink against the plate to his left and relaxes a bit, eyeballing the local team across the table.

Even with food in front of them, the local team is obviously ogling the lot of them, still looking their fill despite the introductions earlier. Not-Keith allows them to eat for a handful of minutes before he straightens, his default frown becoming more severe. It's not as bad as it had been earlier, when they'd been in a kind of minor standoff in their respective Lions, so maybe he's seen something since that has assuage his suspicions.

"This fugitive that you're hunting," not-Keith says. "What is it that she's looking for? What's she trying to do and why does she think she can do it in our reality?"

Keith exhales quietly. "We don't think it's a 'what' but a 'who,'" he says grimly.

"A who," not-Allura echoes in concern.

"Brelyu isn't exactly your standard villain of the week," Hunk says. "She doesn't do a lot of monologing or making of demands. That makes it a _little_ difficult to know for sure what she wants and what she's after."

"Whatever it is," Pidge adds, "it's not about Voltron. Even now, we're more of a nuisance to her than an actual enemy."

"But you've stopped her from destroying other realities?" not-Lance interjects with confusion.

"Yeah," Lance allows around a bite of food, "but the destroying realities part - that's not actually the point? It's more of a symptom."

"What? Like she's - accidentally doing it?" not-Pidge demands.

"It _is_ a lot easier just to do things without caring about whether or not it's safe for anyone else," not-Pidge replies dryly. "Endangering others is often the biggest obstacle to scientific advancement around. The methodology is kind of lazy if you don't do it the safest, sanest way you can, but… "

"What does she want from this person that she's searching for?" not-Allura asks.

"We're not even entirely certain she _is_ looking for a 'who'," Allura corrects, "we only suspect it. Of all the realities that she targets, there are a few shared characteristics - Voltron exists. Most of the time, some variation of the team we have are the paladins of Voltron. But that, I think, is just a convergent development. If Brelyu were concerned with Voltron at all, there have already been several realities she's discarded where she could have easily defeated or seized control of Voltron instead - ours included." She pauses with a grim look for a moment before moving on. "The technological developments outside of Voltron has differed enough in a few realities that it's doubtful that she's searching for some kind of weapon or discovery.."

"But she moves fast," Pidge adds. "She's been doing this reality jumping thing a _lot,_ and for a lot longer than we have. We've always been in too much of a hurry to follow her to the next reality to really be able to investigate and follow her steps exactly. Using her wormholes kind of ensures that we land in the same reality as her."

"Lance was one the one to suggest that it might be a 'who,'" Keith adds.

Lance glances up from his food at his name and is greeted by not-Keith apparently taking that seriously, looking at him. "Any particular reason why?" he asks.

He almost chokes, coughing and thumping his chest. Hunk, the unhelpful lug, ignores Lance's death throes, and so does Keith, because Lance has the least helpful teammates on the face of the multiverse.

"W-well," he says, setting his fork down and averting his gaze. It's one of those things his team stopped questioning him about since he never quite knows how to put it into words. How is he supposed to say that something about Brelyu had resonated with him in some way? She's a multiverse surfing omnicidal maniac who wipes entire realities out of existence out of pure lack of care. He can't liken himself to _that._

Raking his hand back through his hair, his fingers catch and linger on the straps of his eyepatch. "I dunno, all of this just feels really personal, you know?" he asks, glancing up across the table at not-Keith. "This all _matters_ to her in a way that blotting out a million-billion lives just - doesn't. And it would be different if she were trying to find something to _prove_ something. It's not about personal satisfaction. It's like - she's lonely?"

"Oh, great, an omnicidal manic with a sob story," not-Pidge says bluntly.

"Yeah, cool story, still the death of countless entire realities," Hunk agrees. "We're not excusing what she's done, but we're not any closer to stopping her now after three years of fighting her than we were when we fought her the first time when she arrived in _our_ reality. The fact that she hasn't even tried killing us and actually spared Lance the time he caught up to her is weird though. There has to be something we can exploit."

"Maybe she's weak to his face," Pidge offers without much care. "Everyone else seems to be."

Lance glares at her, tugging restlessly at the edges of his eyepatch. She thinks she's so funny. They'll see how much she's laughing when _she_ meets Brelyu and a thing that has carelessly ended entire universes looks her in the eye and fails to see her as a thing that lives and breathes and thinks. That has opinions and experiences, that has influenced others and been influenced, that exists as a part of the fabric of reality.

A cold chill goes down his spine even now, just remembering it. Lance has faced fighters with nothing more than his body and his bayard, a hundred Galra soldiers, the void of space, the fiery wrath of a supernova, countless mercs with countless blades to his throat and gun barrels to his skull and an entire _department_ of people trying to figure out what made him tick. Not even they came close to the look in Brelyu's eyes when he'd tried standing in her path. He might as well have been an NPC in a game that Brelyu was recklessly breaking and abusing with mods and cheats.

Then again, maybe Pidge would handle that kind of existential dread better than he did. Somehow it wouldn't surprise him.

"You said you'd be able to hunt her, despite being delayed," not-Keith says. "Where would she go?"

"It's not that simple," Keith says, abandoning his food to cross his arms like an utter idiot, _honestly._ "We have some good ideas, of course, but if we force her hand, then that'll just make her stop being careful. You _don't_ want her to stop being careful."

Not-Keith narrows his eyes, but Allura speaks up before tensions can escalate. "It's more of a matter that Brelyu doesn't belong to this reality - and neither do we," she explains, even as Lance elbows Keith, turning his head until he can glare him straight in the eye and communicate that the next one is going in his kidneys. Keith makes a face like a _five year old_ being sat down in front of peas because he's the actual worse. "That's how we managed to chase her down in our own reality. Her Quintessence is out of sync with the natural fabric of this one. Our Lions have learned how to track it."

"Can't they teach our Lions?" not-Pidge asks.

"We've tried that before," Allura says, "but the Lions haven't been able to tell the difference between _us_ not belonging in their reality and Brelyu."

"We don't have time to waste," Keith says, spearing something on his plate so savagely that Lance winces from the unexpected screech of the fork tines. "If you come with us, our Lions can try teaching yours on the way, but every moment we waste is another that tilts your reality toward destruction."

Lance gives up, honestly. Naturally, he also has a sense of urgency about saving every reality they enter, but he simply doesn't have Keith's stamina. He can't be _that_ intense and impatient about it constantly for _almost four years now._ He used to worry more about it, before he'd met Brelyu, anyway. It's not as though she has a thirst for destruction: she just _doesn't care._ Which is awful! Of course, it's awful!

But her methods are always polite and subdued up until she determines that a reality isn't her Goldilocks reality. They have weeks, or maybe even a month or two before she'll determine that and go full evil omnicidal megalomaniac, destroyer of worlds.

They all knows this, more or less, but no one tries to argue with Keith over the matter. It's entirely futile to bother trying, and Lance is just about the only one willing to put energy into a hopeless cause like that. Sometimes it's just easier to let Keith wind himself up and tired himself out and pick up the pieces later.

So far Lance hasn't really been _wrong:_ this reality has been going pretty swimmingly so far, Keith's weird conflict of interests with himself aside. Maybe Hunk was right? Maybe they _are_ due for something going right for once!

...yeah, Lance has probably just jinxed the fuck out of them all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic is faking so hard at being plot driven. I mean, obviously there's a plot. I gave it a plot. But the only important part of this fic is Keith and Lance's relationship and how not-Keith feels about the whole thing and eventually what kinds of things not-Keith and Lance are going to talk about in order to get everyone's heads out of their asses, **re:** the mutually unrequited tag. 
> 
> The Bad Timeline Crew's armors aren't _that_ important, but for the more visual reader: more or less the canon armors but just. Sleeker and black. The incantations (which are positioned like racing stripes, if it weren't clear) only glow when the Lions' powers are being used. Pidge and Hunk's detailing is all one color, but as for the others, the vents and chevron are their 'personal/Quintessence' colors while the runes and armor trim is the Lion's color. For Keith, this makes his vents and chevron red, the color detailing on the armor and his runes purple. 
> 
> Between normal cultural drift over generations and other social phenomena, the Alteans of Lotor's colony actually had two faces - the one that reflected what Lotor wanted to see, and the one that existed behind closed doors. Allura was crushed when she found this out, since their outward facing culture most closely resembled her own.
> 
> Lance has broken Keith out of _so many_ high-security containment cells, you don't even know. There's usually running and screaming involved - before, during, and after.
> 
> The entire Bad Timeline Crew is basically suffering from compassion fatigue tbh, and struggle to remember what's appropriate and what they only find hilarious because they and their loved ones keep getting tortured and/or almost dying.


End file.
